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“So where are you off to next?” asked Emma as the waiters returned to serve the guests with coffee and After Eight mints.

“East Berlin, a meeting of foreign ministers,” replied her brother.

“Do you think they’ll ever tear down that barbaric wall?” asked Grace.

“Not as long as that stooge Ulbricht is in power and simply carries out the bidding of his masters in the Kremlin.”

“And closer to home,” said Emma, “when do you think the general election will be?”

“Harold wants to go in May, when he’s confident we can win.”

“I feel sure you’ll hold on to Bristol,” said Emma, “barring some accident. But I still think the Tories will scrape home with a small majority.”

“And you’ll remain loyal to the Labour Party?” Giles asked, turning to his younger sister.

“Of course,” said Grace.

“And you, Emma?”

“Not a chance.”

“Some things never change.”

18

GWYNETH GROANED when the alarm went off, and didn’t bother to check what time it was. She had perfected the art of falling back to sleep within minutes of Giles leaving the room. He always took a shower the night before, and laid out the clothes he would need in his dressing room so he wouldn’t have to turn on the light and disturb her.

He glanced out of the window overlooking Smith Square. His car was already parked outside the front door. He didn’t like to think what hour his driver had to get up to be sure he was never late.

Once Giles had shaved and dressed, he went down to the kitchen, made himself a cup of black coffee, and devoured a bowl of cornflakes and fruit. Five minutes later he picked up his suitcase and headed for the front door. Gwyneth only ever asked him one question when he was going away: how many days? Two, he’d told her on this occasion, and she’d packed accordingly. He wouldn’t even have to check before he unpacked in Berlin, because he knew everything he needed would be there.

His first wife had been a whore, while his second turned out to be a virgin. Giles tried not to admit, even to himself, that he would have liked a subtle combination of both. Virginia in the bedroom, and Gwyneth everywhere else. He often wondered if other men had the same fantasies. Certainly not Harry, who was even more in love with Emma than he’d been on the day they married. Giles envied that relationship, although that was something else he would never admit, even to his closest friend.

“Good morning, Alf,” said Giles as he climbed into the back of the car.

“Good morning, minister,” replied his driver cheerily.

Alf had been Giles’s driver since the day he’d become a minister, and he was often a better source of information about what was happening in the real world than most of his Cabinet colleagues.

“So where are we off to today, sir?”

“East Berlin.”

“Rather you than me.”

“I know how you feel. Now, what have you got for me?”

“The election will be in June, probably the eighteenth.”

“But the press are still predicting May. Where are you getting your information?”

“Clarence, the PM’s driver, told me, didn’t he?”

“Then I’ll need to brief Griff immediately. Anything else?”

“The foreign secretary will announce this morning that he’ll be standing down from the cabinet after the election, whatever the result.”

Giles didn’t respond while he considered Alf’s casually dropped bombshell. If he could hold on to Bristol Docklands, and if Labour were to win the general election, he must be in with a chance of being offered the Foreign Office. Only problem: two ifs. He allowed himself a wry smile.

“Not bad, Alf, not bad at all,” he added as he opened his red box and began to look through his papers.

He always enjoyed catching up with his opposite numbers across Europe, exchanging views in corridors, lifts, and bars where the realpolitik took place, rather than in the endless formal gatherings for which civil servants had already drafted the minutes long before the meeting was called to order.

Alf swept through an unmarked entrance onto runway three at Heathrow and came to a halt at the bottom of the boarding stairs that led up to the aircraft. If Giles didn’t retain his seat in the cabinet after the election, he was going to miss all this. Back to joining baggage queues, check-in counters, passport control, security checks, long walks to the gate, and then an endless wait before you were finally told you could board the plane.

Alf opened the backdoor and Giles climbed the steps to the waiting aircraft. Don’t get used to it, Harold Wilson had once warned him. Only the Queen can afford to do that.

Giles was the last passenger to board and the door was pulled closed as he took his seat in the front row, next to his permanent secretary.

“Good morning, minister,” he said. Not a man who wasted time on small talk. “Although on the face of it, minister,” he continued, “this conference doesn’t look at all promising, there could be several opportunities for us to take advantage of.”

“Such as?”